Sunday 22 November 2009

Nine? Nein! Nine! Be very afraid of Spurs and Jermain man


GOONERS everywhere be afraid. Be very afraid. Tottenham stuck nine, yes nine, past Wigan at White Hart Lane today. And Jermain Defoe, the little big guy who should play every England game alongside Wayne Rooney, stuck away five of them, including three in eight minutes, the second fastest hat-trick in the history of the Premiership.
Not since Manchester United put nine without reply past Ipswich in 1995 has the Premier League seen anything it. And Wigan... well, they've just never seen anything like it.
Remember, Roberto Martinez's side beat runaway leaders Chelsea 3-1 on 26 September. Incredible. I tend to put two quid a week on seven results as an accumulator, often at odds of 500-1... but this one scoreline was a 750-1 shot at Corals.
It was one of those rare results that come up on the teleprinter (aka the internet) with the score in words next to the number. Just so we know it's not a typing mistake.
There's no point trying to run you through it, this is a blog, not War and Peace. The goals went like this: Crouch 9, Defoe 51, Defoe 54, Defoe 58, Lennon 64, Defoe 69, Defoe 87, Kirkland (og) 88 and finally Kranjcar, four minutes into injury time.
Defoe (yes, he's the 5ft 6in one above, with Peter Crouch) said afterwards he was hoping "to score a few more" while Redknapp oozed "Jermain looked like that yesterday in training, he looks so sharp that I just thought if he can carry that into the game he's going to be a real handful today for their back four.
"All the strikers have been in great form. Robbie's (Keane) had a four this year, now Jermain's had five, Crouchy's had a three. So it's nice to have your strikers all scoring goals.
"
Martinez looked stunned, as well he should after an afternoon of chronically bad defending which will reduce Alan Hansen to a sloppy mess if he ever gets to review it. The Wigan boss groaned: "It was unacceptable and unexpected. The way we defended in key moments was not good enough.
"I am embarrassed as it's a result we don't want to be associated with. We need to move on quickly and give a good reaction in the next game.
"I've never been involved in a game like this. But the damage of this won't be carried into the next game."
Don't bet on it Roberto.
All this of course on a weekend when rivals Arsenal failed to score against Sunderland, who scored the only goal through Darren Bent. No prizes for guessing where he was before Defoe returned to White Hart Lane from Portsmouth to rejoin Redknapp - and left Bent surplus to requirements.
At the top, Chelsea crushed Wolves 4-0 and Manchester United were too much for Everton, with Darren Fletcher scoring a cracker in a 3-0 win. Liverpool dropped further off the top four and had to come from 2-1 down to draw 2-2 against Manchester City. On another goal-happy weekend, West Ham came back to draw 3-3 at Hull, Birmingham beat Fulham 1-0 and Aston Villa came from behind to draw 1-1 at Burnley.
Today's less one-sided games? Ricardo Fuller's first Premier League goal of the season was enough to see Stoke beat Portsmouth - without injured goalkeeper David James - and Blackburn beat Bolton 2-0 with goals from David Dunn and an own goal from Sam Ricketts. That makes 34 goals in 10 games, another corking weekend for goals in the Premier League. Unless you're Roberto Martinez.

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